The SJG version of HQ was much more traditional in presentation, the HQ:G version takes the story beats ideas from Robin Laws and integrates them in. The version of HQ standalone on the Chaosium site is the same (as this is HQ2). I suspect that you could ignore the story beats element if you wanted to.
I've only skimmed the rules in HQ:G but what I can say is that all the versions post the original box set have been much more clearly presented than the Hero Wars box set ever was and that you could still draw on HW books.
If I was to revisit Glorantha, it would be via HQ, or via HQ ported into Wordplay/Tripod.